MUNA - Museum of Nature and Archaeology

MUNA (Museo de Naturaleza y Arqueología) is the most important museum in Macaronesia and the best place in the world to understand who the Guanches were: the indigenous people of Tenerife before the European conquest. It is housed in the Antiguo Hospital Civil de Nuestra Señora de los Desamparados, a beautiful 18th-century neoclassical building declared a BIC (heritage site) in 1983. The museum integrates three institutions: the Archaeological Museum of Tenerife (founded 1958, first director Luis Diego Cuscoy), the Canary Institute of Bioanthropology and the Museum of Natural Sciences. In its current location since 1994.

The crown jewel is the world's largest collection of Guanche mummies: over 140 embalmed bodies and 12 complete mummies. The most famous is the Mummy of San Andrés. In 2003 the Guanche Mummies of Necochea were added, recovered from a museum in Argentina. In 2024 the new 'Éxodo y restitución' module opened, presenting 5 recently repatriated mummies and a replica of the Barranco de Erques mummy (housed at the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid): among the best-preserved human remains of Guanche culture. The collection has global reach: in 2009 both Discovery Channel and Japan's NHK filmed documentaries here, and in 2015 South Korean broadcaster KBS followed.

The funerary hall displays complete mummies of adults, children and foetuses, skulls and objects from the royal tombs of the Menceys (Guanche kings). The Zanata Stone with Berber-Punic inscriptions is the key to understanding the North African origin of the Guanches. Other exceptional exhibits include 13 Egyptian ceramics dating back 5,700 years (among the oldest in any Spanish museum), Roman and Aegean amphorae, Guanche pottery and a pre-Columbian collection (Aztec, Mayan, Olmec).

The Natural Sciences section covers Canary Island volcanology (the archipelago formed 20 million years ago) and the island's extinct fauna in life-size models: the giant lizard Gallotia goliath, the giant rat Canariomys bravoi and the giant tortoise Geochelone burchardi. There are also a megalodon tooth and trilobites. In the museum patio Moon A operates: a space combining gastronomy, music, art and cultural events in the historic setting of the neoclassical courtyard.